<a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/10/24/syria-rebels-nsa-saudi-prince-assad/">The NSA report revealed</a> that the Saudi prince was directly responsible for ordering a coordinated attack by Syrian rebels in Damascus. The role Russia and Iran played in aiding Assad in his fight against Assad have been the object of much media scrutiny. What is not nearly as well represented in US media sources however is the part Saudi Arabia, Qatar and even the United States had to play in the funding and training of the Islamic State.

ISIS emerged out of the so-called Arab Spring, which at the time was referred to as "the Twitter revolution." It's particularly ironic that so much emphasis on how foreign governments are trying to influence our democracy through Twitter when we have actively fomented revolutions in democratic nations for decades. A controlling share of Twitter is owned by Saudi Prince Talal, by the way. What a delicious irony if "The American Spring" is meant to be a sequel to the rash of populist uprisings in the Middle East in 2012 and 2013.

The Intercept spoke with Stathis Kalyvas, a professor of political science at Yale and author of "The Logic of Violence in Civil War."

<blockquote>Generally, a large number of civil wars tend to start from the periphery, with a small group of people who assemble in isolated areas of the country and take time to build up a military structure. That is the general idea behind a guerilla war.

The Syrian case is striking for the extent and the speed with which the opposition was able to arm itself. Despite the fact that there were many defections from the military, we didn’t really observe the implosion of Syrian state. At the same time, we saw this very decentralized but rapid emergence of a rebel army — which, for me, is quite puzzling — and the most likely explanation is the extent and ability of the opposition to gain external assistance.</blockquote>